The exciting extra-inning contest that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a total 51 million viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB announced this is the most-watched World Series finale after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable contest secured over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language program in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series drew 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete US average was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and the network’s best postseason ratings since 2017.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different languages.
